aliyaa

This was the second of Hardinge's books that I read, after Deeplight, which I rated five stars and loved. This novel was interesting to follow it with because it deals with many of the same themes and even the same metaphors (view spoiler), but it combines them with so many more ideas and conflicts that the result lacks, I feel, the elegance of Deeplight. It's just a bit messy, and as a result a few unfortunate things occur. For example, one of the central thematic tensions of the novel is simply never addressed or resolved. Caverna, as a setting, has such an interesting internal contradiction. Is it the realm of the Platonic ideals, the pure, True forms of those delicacies which everywhere else are mere imitations? Or is it a domain of imitation and illusion itself, its very light and air mere simulacra of the outside world? This tension seems central to the conflict between protagonist Neverfell and the ultimate villain that it seems strange that in the end, (view spoiler). This also undermines some of the side characters' perspectives on the setting as well (view spoiler). Also, the protagonist has almost no agency for the entirety of the novel. Even in the final act, (view spoiler). This isn't a problem at all; on the contrary, some of my favorite novels -- like The Tombs of Atuan! -- have very disempowered protagonists. It's a great way of representing what it is to be a child, or a woman, or any number of other things, and it worked well in Deeplight. Unlike those stories, however, in this one, there is always some other force working to protect her very explicitly, especially in act two. And what can I say? I just don't really like the whole "finding notes from a secret protector" trope. I don't want to just list problems I have with the novel, because I did genuinely enjoy reading it and I had a lot to talk about with my boyfriend afterwards. But there's just so much going on: authenticity, the nature of the real, the importance of one's origins, power, social inequality, neuronormativism... it's hard to handle this many conflicts in one reasonably-sized YA novel. Recommended, but honestly, I would suggest Deeplight first. It's a later novel by the same author and it's clear that she's refined the themes a bit more in between.

Wow. This is one of the best YA/children's novels I have ever read. It's stylistically bold (Lovecraftian horror?), thematically rich, and develops the relationships between its characters so, so well. I can see why Hardinge shares with Pullman what she does. I am not a child. I am, based on my experience reading this book, too old for it to really have been written with me in mind. Some ideas are, in my opinion, a bit overestablished, with conversation after conversation establishing the dynamic of the dysfunctional, abusive friendship that is the core of this novel. But what it accomplishes thematically -- blending fear, power, and the sublime into one coherent message of finding one's identity amid turbulent change -- is downright beautiful. As I read, I tried to think: what would this have meant to me if I had read it in middle school? And I think it would have meant quite a lot. I wish I had known about it then. Highly recommended.

This is actually one of my favorite books of all time. The plot is compelling, the science is interesting, but above all else, the worldbuilding is genuinely really, really interesting! It's just strange enough to be alien, but in writing so, Stephenson makes a world that's both very easy to imagine and also very rewarding to explore. If you like worldbuilding, then this is a good book for you. Science and math take center stage as well, with several actual proofs included in the novel, though broken out into appendices in case you want to skip over the details (and pictures). That said, I feel that the primary purpose of all the technical mumbo jumbo is effectively turned into just another way of fleshing out mathic culture, and makes it feel remarkably complete. And if you liked the final scene of 2001, just wait for the final scene of Anathem! Negative-wise... it's a Neil Stephenson book. It's long, there's a lot of description, and the plot is somewhat convoluted. Some aspects of the worldbuilding are clearly just jabs at our world. And (on the face of it, anyway) some worldbuilding elements may seem... remarkably derivative. Also, because I don't want to leave it out: Stephenson writes women in a way that isn't distinctly terrible, but there are still a few painful points here and there, especially to do with the protagonist's love interest. It's better than Tekla in Seveneves, but it's not incredible. For what it's worth, though, I don't think anybody would find this aspect of the book disqualifying, and encourage you to read it anyway. Anyway, this book is great. Like I said, it's one of my favorites. It might not be for everybody, but I'm still going to say it: pick it up, and see if you like it!

I loved the intrigue, scheming, politics, and even poetry. Martine does a very good job of making it feel like Mahit really has walked right into an already-twisted web full of characters in conflict, and it gives the plot the perfect balance between crazy plot twists and "oh, so that's what's going on!" that made me feel rather smart at times as I was reading it. The pacing was excellent: no chapters felt like drags, but it was also very rare that I wished any scene had been made much longer. The story starts slow, then accelerates, building more and more tension until all hell breaks loose --- just what's expected of the genre. By the end, I couldn't stop reading the book. Well, actually, the whole thing was so gripping that I went through it all in one plane ride to Detroit. I'd like to call special attention to the names Martine uses for Teixcalaanli characters. Each Teixcalaanlitzim has a name composed of a cardinal number and a thing, almost always a type of plant, something else from nature, or a cool science fiction word; examples include "Three Seagrass", "One Lightning", and "Nineteen Adze". Wait, an adze? Yes, the theming is fairly loose, but I think having just a general trend towards plants and nature gives a lot to establish a poetic theme for Teixcalaanli society while also giving room for individual Teixcalaanlitzim to have names that stand out. Some readers of the book seem to struggle with keeping these names straight, which I can imagine, but I never had any problem with this myself... I guess that's something that should be kept in mind, though. It's also interesting to me the way that Martine has set up Teixcalaan and Lsel Station as seeming very different and being constantly at odds --- culturally, anyway --- while really having very similar core values. Stationers may do through technology what Teixcalaanlitzim do through literature, but in the end, both societies are built around constantly emulating and even reliving the past. I'll avoid going into some kind of deep analysis of the novel, but I do feel that A Memory Called Empire is symbolically rich enough to appeal to that kind of reader as well. Highly recommended.

The relationship between Three Seagrass and Mahit Dzmare is oddly compelling. It's very rare that I feel about a romance in a science fiction story anything other than "ugh, when will this be done so that we can get back to the interesting stuff?" Despite that, Martine manages to write something that has me consistently invested and desperately pleading for the two to reconcile, solve their problems, and end up together. Eight Antidote ends up being a pivotal character in the story, which I like. Science fiction doesn't completely lack children solving problems where adults were blind, but his plotting manages to simultaneously be clever, critical, and still childish. The eventual way that Mahit escapes her persecution on Lsel is interesting --- actually, overall, I'd say that her relationship with Lsel Station and Three Seagrass and the way love, loyalty, and nationality are intertwined with each is the real gold in this story. My problems with this book pretty much all stem from the fact that other things distracted me from what could have also just been a neat if rather mysterious short story about Mahit and Three Seagrass on Nine Hibiscus's flagship investigating a vague and never-really-specified situation, where the story remains just about the spotlight characters and the way that nation, culture, and empire influence their motivations and relationships. Unfortunately, there is no mystery in this story! The original had a deep web of plots that the reader needed to wade through with Mahit and Yskandr, trying to figure out the motivations and histories of all the other characters just as they did. A Desolation Called Peace, on the other hand, spoils itself: the very first thing in the book you read is from the perspective of the aliens, clearly demonstrating that are a hive mind --- something that the book then acts, for the entire rest of its first half, as though it is some kind of clever secret to be figured out! The "Shard trick" that Nine Hibiscus and her subordinates are so cagey and mysterious about is similarly obvious, especially once the hive mind theme has already been so bluntly established. As a result, I was very frustrated reading a lot of the first contact bits, because it really just felt like I had nothing to do but wait for the charcters to realize the most obvious facts of their situation. The story might work a little better as written for readers not as familiar with the hive mind as a science fiction concept, but as it is, Martine seems to have commited the critical error of simulatenously revealing something and writing a story that depended on it not having been revealed. Message-wise, "don't genocide your enemies" is never going to go over too poorly with me. Theme-wise, though, I'm not so sure about this book. It takes a core similarity between Teixcalaanli and Stationer culture and decides to throw it aside in favor of an exploration of collective consciousness that really feels more like "Martine thought this seemed interesting" than "Martine has something interesting to say." Like, what do I take away from the novel about collective consciousness? I'm not sure it really adds anything to the conversation. In summary, this was a bit of a mixed bag: there were many points at which I was keenly invested in everything that was happening, but there were also many sections that I found purely frustrating to get through. Therefore, I would recommend this book only to fans of A Memory Called Empire who are desperately waiting to see what happens next in the world of Teixcalaan and Lsel Station. Read it for more of Martine's insight into culture, but if you're interested in the advertized first contact story, then I'd say to look elsewhere.

It's a great book on the Fermi paradox, but with deep problems. Actually, the particular solution proposed in Existence doesn't seem to have made it onto the Wikipedia article or any listicles I could find, even now, over a decade after the book came out. That's probably because it's very quirky, but that doesn't make it not interesting. The book also includes many other short meditations on the Fermi paradox and the fundamental problems and contradictions threatening the core of human civilization. Some of the characters and action scenes are interesting. Some. I have a lot of issues with this book, but one major one far outshadows the rest: The autism nonsense manages to take up like 40% of the book, and it's completely clear that he's never talked to an autistic person before. Like, he's right: they aren't, as he's written them, human at all, they're weird aliens who sit around plotting weird terrorist attacks to punish... I don't think Brin actually understands what the high/low-functioning distinction is even supposed to be! And sure enough, his conclusion works that out: if I remember correctly, there end up being five species of humans sallying forth into the galaxy as one polity: humans, cyborgs, androids, high-functioning autistic people, and low-functioning autistic people. Oof. I'd say read this if you want to read every Brin book, or if you want to read every Fermi Paradox book. Otherwise, there are plenty of other options out there.